Out Of Balance

The imbalance in the UK TV industry is once again being shown up as the BBC refuses to screen a humanitarian appeal film for the country's major charities whilst the commercial channels have gone ahead and done so. 

Coming from an organisation whose idea of news increasingly comprises of self-promotion of its own shows, including endless promotion of its own charity events, this again makes the case for reform. 

Cash strapped Channel 4 News consistently shows up the BBC's news efforts, and the Beeb's increasing reluctance to get under the skin of news stories is apparent. In the current scenario, perhaps the irony of reporting the whole of the Gaza conflict from Israel does not occur to them.

Meanwhile, it's going to be interesting to see what happens to the ultra-right, but massively popular news channel, Fox News, now that their poster kids have left power.

In the UK the imbalance of newspaper news coverage is taken as a given, in the US it's the balance of newsprint coverage that is scrutinised.

Of course, the point of balance for news coverage depends on your perspective, but the BBC needs to find itself covering news, not making it.


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